Gifts
by Mamfe
Summary: Draco was forced to share a secret with Hermione a year ago, and as much as Draco fights it, that secret might kill her.
1. Detention

Gifts  
H/D  
  
  


Hermione's chest was tight with fear. Her wand was in one hand, while the other was clenched tightly into a fist. She could hear them moving in the kitchen.   


As she made her way towards the noise coming from her family's kitchen, she thanked God that her parents weren't home tonight. She kept her back tight against the wall, her steps slow and light. A cabinet drawer slammed shut, and Hermione stopped dead, grinding her teeth together to avoid screaming.   


Dumbledore had warned her, he had warned all of them. They were coming for the muggle-borns.   


The noise had stopped in the kitchen suddenly; there were no more footsteps, no more hushed voices. Nothing. Hermione's heart began to pound and she tried to call forth every ounce of the ability Draco had given her and figure out where in her house the bastards had apparated.   


There. She had them.   
___  
  
Draco's chest was tight with fear. He could feel Hermione's terror as she went looking for the Death Eaters that had broken into her parent's house. He looked at her father, who was watching him from the other side of the room. Lucius was smug, Draco knew his father had been waiting for this day for years.   


Tearing his eye's away from his father, Draco concentrated on the whisper of Hermione's mind he could still feel. The months apart had made the connection tenuous, but he could still feel her. There was a sudden fit of activity from Hermione and then there was...nothing.  


Draco threw himself forward, straining to break free from the rope Lucius had tied him up with.   


Lucius watched his son struggling and smiled. Finally, the mudblood was being taken care of.   
  
**One Year Earlier  
  
** Hermione rubbed her eyes wearily, she was getting tired of listening to Draco's arrogance. It was one in the morning, much too late (or early, depending on the way one chose to look at it) to be dealing with a Malfoy. Hermione had hexed Draco in the halls after he had fired a curse at Harry, and even though Ron had never been prouder of her, she and Draco had received detention for two weeks. Two weeks together that is. It was only the second night, but Hermione's head already felt ready to explode.   


Draco had just finished ridiculing her for beginning to clean one of the Ghnguts the muggle way instead of with her wand. It had been habit, she was exhausted and still not entirely used to preforming everyday tasks with the help of magic. Naturally, Draco had rattled on about her mistake for a solid ten minutes.   


Hermione didn't respond, she just continued to clean the blasted Ghnguts; taking her anger out on them. Normally, Hermione would have given Draco what he deserved but honestly, she was just too bloody tired.   


Draco watched Hermione's back hopefully. She wasn't responding as she had been the night before, apparently she had found a way to block him out. Draco had thought his last string of insults would have produced some sort of reaction. He almost missed her retorts. The silence was quite boring.   


Very boring.   


The night went on for another hour in the same exact way, Draco insulting Hermione and Hermione ignoring Draco. At exactly two a.m., The door unlocked and Draco was free until the next evening.   


The only problem was that Hermione had yet to move. Draco stared at her for a moment, wondering what was keeping her. Draco almost cracked up when he realized what had happened, she had fallen asleep. A Ghngut was laying in her lap, and her head rested on the wall. Briefly considering leaving her to spend the night in the room, he knew he would be in even more trouble in the morning if he didn't wake her up.   


Draco walked over to scare her awake but thought better of it. From what he knew of Hermione's temperament and ability with magic, Draco figured he was better off just waking her up nicely so she didn't hex him into two pieces.   


Slowly, Draco reached out tugged on the dangling fabric of her robes, careful not to touch her body. Granger. Wake up.  


Instead of waking up, Hermione just curled up into a ball. Frustrated, Draco ran his fingers through his hair; He was afraid of what would happen if he touched her. Desperately ready to go to bed, Draco decided to just risk it and yell. Kneeling down next to her, Draco braced for the worst, Granger!! Potter and Weasley are snogging!! Hermione sat up extremely fast and slammed into Draco, sending them both to the floor.   


Hermione climbed off of Draco as fast as she could. She looked down and saw that Draco had covered his eyes, grimacing in pain. He got up after a few minutes and turned to look at her.   


Hermione was staring at him curiously, she was sure she hadn't knocked him down that hard. Are you-  


I'm fine, Draco snapped, Though you might want to think about cutting back on the sugar quills.   


Hermione rolled her eyes, making a tutting noise. She was _not _going to rise to the occasion. Before leaving, Hermione stared at him a moment more; there still wasn't something quite right about him.   


Draco smirked when he noticed Hermione watching him, Try not to drool again tomorrow night if you fall asleep alright?  


Hermione slammed the door behind her, _serves me right for worrying about Malfoy._  


Draco collapsed against a wall as soon as the door shut. Her mind had been different than any he had encountered before. Taking a few moments to collect himself, Draco sat up and made his way to his room, still not completely able to forget what it was like to feel Granger's aura surround him.


	2. Showers

Gifts Chapter 2  
  
Draco collapsed into his bed and ran his hands through his hair. Dammit. Dammit. Dammit.  
  
Crabbe's familiar's snores filled the room and Draco moaned. He always tried to get to sleep before Crabbe started up, he could never fall asleep with Crabbe's ox-like nasal problems steadily making themselves known. Covering his entire head with a pillow, Draco tried to shut out everything.  
  
Even with Crabbe's snores somewhat muffled; Draco knew he wouldn't be sleeping tonight. The memory of Granger was still in his mind, he wasn't able to get rid of her. She was amazing. Never before had Draco come in contact with anyone's whose mind was so.busy. Her thoughts spread into what seemed like a thousand different directions at once, even in the few seconds he had been touching her. And her aura was even more fascinating. It was sharp and focused, just like her intelligence would suggest.but it was warm too. She was full of warmth.  
  
Draco squeezed the pillow over his face and screamed. He hated this.curse that he had been born with. Ever since he was old enough to understand, Draco had been able to see within people with a simple touch. After years of training, Draco had learned how to control this ability when people were fully awake, but the mind was stronger when asleep. Draco had never been able to successfully block anyone out when he had touched him or her when they were asleep.  
  
Granger had completely overwhelmed him. She had torn through all of his defenses without even trying, without even knowing what she was doing. Her touch was enough to destroy him instantly.  
  
His father had worked for years with Draco, testing him, training him so something like this would never happen. Lucius had plans for Draco's "gift," but he forbid Draco to use his abilities until he himself instructed Draco to.  
  
Draco tore the blankets away from him and stormed into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him, careful not to wake any of his dorm mates. He turned on a shower to the hottest temperature and quickly removed his clothes before getting in. Draco shut his eyes and let the scalding water run over his face and chest. He could feel her running through him; he could feel everything about her.  
  
They were linked now, and Draco couldn't do a thing about it.  
  
*****  
  
Across the school, Hermione wasn't able to sleep either. She was agitated, though she had no idea why. Sighing, she got out of bed and went to take a shower. Sleep wasn't coming tonight, and Hermione hated just lying in bed with nothing to do.  
  
Carefully folding her clothes, Hermione stepped into the shower, letting the hot water relax her muscles. She usually liked the water cooler, but for some reason Hermione turned the water to the hottest setting.  
  
Closing her eyes, Hermione tried to concentrate on the problem set Professor Vector had assigned them the day before but to no use. Hermione shook her head slightly; she couldn't seem to think straight. It was almost like there was someone else in her head.  
  
Letting her thoughts wander, as them seemed determined to, Hermione found herself thinking about the detention with Draco. God, she was really irritated.  
  
In fact, she was extremely irritated, though she wasn't sure why or at what. After so many years as Draco's classmate, she had just learned to live with the constant, slow-burning rage towards him. Her annoyance with Draco certainly wasn't anything new or surprising. So why was it keeping her up at night?  
  
Perhaps it was just that she had to spend every night with him for the next 13 days. Yes, Hermione agreed with herself, that was certainly it. What was keeping her up tonight was the unconscious dread of spending so many hours upon hours with Malfoy. Satisfied that she had found her answer, Hermione turned off the water and got ready to get back in bed. 


	3. French Toast

Gifts  
_Chapter 3  
____  
  
_Draco Malfoy glared at his plate. Hermione was like a bee buzzing in his ear all the damned time. He could hear her buzz buzz buzzing as she blissfully went though her morning routine, unaware that her ever blasted emotion was running through her mind was simultaneously running through _his _mind. Not her every thought, Thank God. Draco was fairly certain if he could read her actually individual thoughts he would have thrown himself off of a very high building.   
  
Or have thrown Granger off of a very high building.   
  
Pansy stared at Draco from across the table with narrowed eyes...there had been something off about him that past few weeks. Pansy couldn't exactly figure out what it was, but whatever it was, it was confusing the hell out of her. Pansy, who would never let on to it, had quite a keen mind when if came to other people's emotions. Though, until recently, Draco had never really seemed to posses anything that really qualified as true emotion.  
  
Except bitterness. Draco Malfoy was damned good at being a caustic bastard.   
  
Draco looked up and noticed Pansy staring at him and smiled, which scared the hell out of Pansy. She was sure that her eyes had just grown to the shape of her owl's. Pansy's heart stopped. Where was the Draco that she had grown up with? Draco didn't smile, Draco smirked. And he didn't push his french toast around so despondently like that either. Draco was determined in every action that he did.   
  
It had all started with those two weeks of detention. At first, Pansy had brushed off the subtle changes as lack of sleep, but now, after 5 days had gone by, Draco was looking more and more pathetic with each passing day.   
  
Last night, instead of his usual routine of feeling her up, snogging for awhile and going to bed, Draco had asked to With _her.   
  
_About two days ago, Pansy had seen Draco pick up a first-year's fallen book.   
  
And now Draco had smiled.   
  
Pansy was confused.   
  
Crabb leaned over and asked Draco if he could help him with his Potions work that night and Draco nodded his head, not really lifting his eyes from the plate, but stabbing his fork into a piece of syrup drenched toast.   
  
Pansy felt her heart warm. Sure, Draco had agreed to actually help someone, but at least he seemed rather vindictive about the toast.   
  
And after Draco snarled when Potter's gang started laughing, Pansy was able to push her thoughts away. Everything was going to be fine.   
  
A few tables down, Hermione was starting to get the feeling that there was something very troublesome going on in her mind. It was like there was a little line of electricity going through her thoughts...like a buzz buzz buzz all day long, slightly annoying her, but never really intruding.   
  
It had started sometime after that first night with Malfoy and she hadn't been able to get rid of it. She had assumed it was simply originating out of the late nights in detention and with Malfoy but now, a few days later, her head was still...buzzing. That was really the only way to describe it.   
  
Madame Pomfrey had pretty much said that Hermione had lost her mind when the old nurse hadn't been able to find anything wrong with Hermione's head. It seemed as if the woman completely dismissed anything that wasn't under her realm of knowledge. Hermione shook her head angrily, she wasn't going insane. That was certain.   
  
It was wasn't it?  
  
Hermione frowned and pushed around her french toast. She was slightly annoyed with it, which was strange as it was toast and deserved no real emotion. Toast is toast. Generally it shouldn't do anything outrageously offensive.   
  
But that was another problem Hermione had discovered. She was annoyed with everyone and was coming off rather sarcastic, even to Harry and Ron. Harry had taken to not speaking much around her though Ron was delighted. He seemed to be timing to see how quickly he could make her jump up and bellow at him. Pig, Ron's owl, was also quite disturbed at the newfound changes in his master's friend and took to hooting at her from the window then promptly turning his back on her.   
  
She noticed Harry staring at her warily, as if waiting to see if she would explode if he asked her to pass the butter. Though, Hermione supposed, there was a pretty decent chance she might.   
  
Damned butter.   
  
Hermione sighed and frustration and tutted to herself. This was ridiculous. She was tired of waiting around to see what would happen next. This had started with Draco, she just knew it. Hermione didn't know how she knew it. But she knew it.   
  
As she stood up and straightened her skirt, Hermione realized in the back of her head that she would never have done anything like this without thinking out the consequences and working through her thought process before this whole strange thing had happened.   
  
Well, Hermione supposed, that's what happens when it feels as if a bee is stuck in your frontal lobe.  
  
Draco looked up in dread. She was walking towards him, and she looked rather ticked off. Draco noticed that she actually looked much like he used to a lot of the time. Draco winced when he saw that she was actually making her way through the crowd to talk to him. He didn't want to do this now. In fact, he rather wanted to curl up with a nice book.  
  
Oh bloody hell. He was turning into Granger.  
  
Draco watched in horror as Hermione reached out to touch his arm. She moved her hand so quickly he didn't even have time to yell.   
  
The both tumbled to the floor and blacked out.   
  
The Slytherins all fell silent and all of the Gryffindors, who had been watching Hermione's change became quiet as well.   
  
Well, what were two rival houses to do when it seemed as if one of those house's members had somehow knocked out the other one.   
  
The two breakfast tables leaped at one another.  
  
Professor McGonagall and Professor Snape leaped into Practice action, quite used to these things occurring. However, if anyone had been looking at Professor Dumbledore (and no one was, as there was a rather tiny war taking up the right side of the Great Hall) that person would have noticed the Headmaster's knowing smile and amused set of his mouth. 


End file.
